O brother, where art thou?
by tomai
Summary: The final Kimmel brother is unveiled, and the game begins in earnest.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, and welcome to this joyous occasion, as I launch my first DW fanfic into the big old interweb sea! This is essentially set somewhere in the time of Going Postal and Thud!. I once drew three brothers, and deemed them the Kimmel clan. I always imagined them as these boring young men who always ended up adventuring, and then one day I got this idea and decided they were perfect for the role. So, review if you like and all that. Enjoy.**

Darkness, flecked with the glitter of stars and purple blue clouds of cosmic stuff floats into vision. It's all rather peaceful. Deep space is the kind of place that would generate questions along philosophical lines. Not a bad place to stay a while.

However, because a story about the infinite abyss of deep space would be rather boring, a shape starts to come into focus.

If we could just focus in on it a bit tighter…

Just a bit more…

Ah. There we go. Behold the Discworld, a massive slice off the bottom of the geological cookie dough roll. Completely flat, it rests upon the broad calloused shoulders of four continental sized elephants, who in turn stand upon the shell of Great A'tuin, the cosmic turtle. A'tuin is a creature of such enormity, such colossal size, that adjectives take one look at him and decide to go on break early. Ten thousand miles across, his shell frozen from the airless climate of deep space, pocked with countless craters, and scarred from solar winds, he ponderously moves his adjective failingly large flippers, creating temporary black holes and propelling him forward through the universe. The Great A'tuin, massive star turtle of deep space, was feeling pretty content.

Such a place as this practically requires a tapestry rich with stories of heroic and lascivious men, beautiful and submissive women, vengeful dragons, and the like. Probably a ring as well. It's one of those epic story things. Fortunately for both the reader and the hack writing this thing, that is hardly the case. This is a story of three dangerously intelligent gods, three comfortably successful brothers, and a bunch of other rubbish that would seem out of place this early in the exposition. The heroes range from skin and bones to rather well fed and two of them are voluntarily celibate. There are plenty of women, and many are quite fetching in their own ways, but there are things that stick to the sides of tide pools more submissive than they. Of course the dragons are still here, but you'd be better off listening for a limited time offer or low interest rates instead of roaring and the flapping of wings if you're looking for one. And there's no ring. Period. This is not an ultimate battle between good and evil. It's something far larger.

The Temple of Small Gods in Ankh-Morpork very well shows the mentality of the city. Anyone is welcome there, even gods that may possibly have only one family following it or indeed, even one person. As long as you can pay, you're good. Of course, gods normally start out with some heavy debts, but when they do pay, they do it with interest.

At any rate, the street that Small Gods resides on, like most of Ankh-Morpork, is constantly under new ownership, as people scuttle up and down the social ladder like spiders suffering from seizures. It was as such that a three story building of no real use but to be a three story building was rented out to a geography tutor and her small group of students. It was a pretty good place by Ankh-Morpork standards and the tutor enjoyed her work. The only real problem was the room mates.

At the top floor was the room for the Retired Librarian's Gentleman's Club. They were harmless enough, though they tended to speak a bit too loud to compensate for their general hearing deficiency and their voices would on occasion rise to phlegm filled yells and shouts as they started to debate about ridiculously obscure garbage like collective unconsciousness and someone's theory on relatives.

Under the tutor's floor was the meeting place for the bi-monthly Sto Plains Lion Taming and Bear Baiting Society meetings. They were an absolute nuisance, good natured as they were and so affable it was sickening. Their ridiculous friendliness was compounded by the fact that they brought their own animals to the meetings and they would often have such friendly contests such as Whose Lion Can Beat the Tar Out of My Lion or Let's See Who Can Wrestle Big Al With a Salmon On Their Head. Normally the winner got a small prize.

You see, originally the librarians and wildlife warriors were separated by one story. It worked as kind of a buffer between the two of them, and it's arguable if the two even new each other existed. But the poor geography study group had to contend with crotchety old men above and boisterous animal wranglers below. Needless to say, there were a good few complaints filed to both parties, which got them annoyed at this new comer, and also introduced them to their other roommates which led to more complaining. In fact, the three leaders of their respective groups would stay after they were done and complain to each other, even going out to dinner together and complain. In this way, a rather odd friendship and even odder business venture were wrought.

The Ankh-Morpork Betterment Agency For Young People was a place where parents could drop off their kids on weekends and rest assured that they would come back with a better concept of the world, their nose in a book, and on occasion a plea for a bear cub. The parents were happy as it lived up to its name, and felt better knowing that while they were having a little "alone time" their kids were indeed getting themselves bettered.  
The complaining continued however. They would yell at each other, school boys screaming at old librarians, giant bearded men bearing down on teachers, and the like. One of the employees under the librarian branch might rant about those uncultured brutes in the Recreational Department, then go out drinking with one of them. And a member of said group of brutes may sneer at the puny Tutors, and then cautiously ask one of them if he'd be so kind as to go to the Mended Drum with her on the weekend. Yet still, the complaints continued, often punctuated by strong language.

This combination of blasphemous oaths, fervent employees, countless patronizers and advocates, and its HQ's oddly coincidental location beside a church spelled out only one logical conclusion. They had created a religion. Well, they'd created gods at any rate.

As it was, three small gods living at the church had seen what was going on and had a surprisingly bright idea. They latched onto the agency and helped in any way they could, suggesting to editors to run advertisements for the place, leaving pamphlets lying around bars where young unemployed people went to, and as their strength grew, even granting their new order small gifts such as the really nice model of the Discworld for the Treacle Mine Road branch.

As they grew, they started to develop distinct personalities, and even chose names for themselves. There was Austania, mistress of Geography, and when later the all academic subjects were taught at the Agency, Physics and Mathematics. She knew everything happening around Discworld, so long as she had a map on hand. As she expanded into other fields of academics, she could also mold time and space to a certain extent, but only if the relevant text books were around. There was Michael the Constantly Chafed, stupendous warrior and doer of stupid things because they could be done. He was invincible in battle if he was fighting either against or by the side of a commonly confirmed dangerous beast and/or the odds were stacked against him. Because of this, there is a tiny possibility that Michael could get bested in combat by one particularly vicious rabbit. Finally, there was Old George, random master of ridiculous facts. George knew absolutely everything and had a perfect memory. Unfortunately, he also had a very limited recall ability, meaning he could at times rattle off the names of every officer in history that led a charge against an enemy with a ham bone or other food scrap for the loss of their sword, while he couldn't tell you what he had eaten ten minutes before the question was asked. He had a tendency to speak in quotes.

These three rather enjoyed their lot in life, being the secret gods of a secret religion, and the benefits of such an existence. They didn't have to worry about criticisms of their church, as it practically didn't exist. They didn't have to worry about such things as a corrupt and power hungry advisor, since no one works with kids in hopes of making much money. They didn't even have to bother with people becoming intolerant of their followers, seeing as to how most of Ankh-Morpork's kids whose parents didn't have enough to apprentice them to one of the guilds could normally manage half a dollar a week to give their kids a proper education at the least. They even enjoyed posing as janitors working in their organization and living in its buildings. Still though, they wouldn't mind having a nicer place to be during the summers when the Ankh was especially pungent.

"I wouldn't mind a little place where I could just be a god," Michael had said one day, "just a place to sit out in the blue glow of infinity, drink some mead, pat a few bottoms."

"It is a bit of a drag being mortal," Austania agreed, "but it does beat just hanging around the Agency buildings."

"Its tallest spires touched the ether of space, propping up the sky like a tent pole. Here the gods enjoyed each others companies and mercilessly stabbed each other in the backs," came the cracked voice of Old George.

"That doesn't sound too bad, George" Michael said after a second of thought. That was normally all he bothered with. "Where's it from?"

"Erm, it's a description of Cori Celestei, house of the gods," said George with some difficulty. He found it a lot easier to talk when quoting some eldritch tome or another.

"That does sound perfect," said Austania. "Minus the back stabbing of course. Is that mandatory?"

"I wouldn't think so," George finally managed to piece together from his own words. He couldn't stand the idea of "wild words" that just floated around in people's heads. They ought to settle down and find themselves a book to be in, like a respectable word should.

"How do we get there though?" Austania wondered out loud, "a place like that sounds pretty exclusive."

"The gods of Cori Celestei claim millions to be their followers," George uttered, happy to be able to quote again, "and hold dominion over the forces that shape the Disc."

"Cor," said Michael and whistled. "How many do we have now?

"About twelve thousand," Austania said after some thought. "Oh well. Maybe we can persuade tour guys to open a chapter house in Genua or something."

"Numbers win battles, cunning wins wars," George said, quoting One Sun Mirror's Art of Making War.

Michael grinned at this. "George is right," picking up a book from off the table they were sitting at and looked at them. "Come on. Let's do some research."

"The Joye of Snackes?" Austania said, reading the spine.

"You know what I meant."

The other two did, and after sweeping the floors and washing the windows of their "temple", they sat around a small round table and became the first gods to actually get religion.

"Well well, what have we got here?" came a greasy voice behind Jonathan Kimmel.

"Looks like one of those Deep Klatchians," came an equally greasy sounding voice.

"Heh, a darkie eh?" came another voice.

"Yeah, technically, you're just half right," said Jonathan, pushing up his glasses which were now slightly askew. Jonathan was one of those singularly unforgettable people who you'd never notice in a crowd. He was tall, about six foot three, with curly black hair and a broad nose. Some would have described his face as "honest", but those people didn't know Jon. He wasn't deceitful or anything, but to him it's a crime to be so good at lying and not do anything with it. He never lied about his ancestry though. He saw no reason to. "My dad was born here in Ankh-Morpork. My mom was from central Klatch though."

"Whatever, I'm sure you bleed like any-" unfortunately, Greasy number one got one of Jon's super sized feet buried into the fork of his legs. Jonathon wasn't a great fighter, but he had mastered the preemptive strike. There was the tiniest thump as leather toe met soft vulnerable flesh. Greasy two looked confusedly at his comrade, now vomiting and crying. This was a big mistake, as he averted his eyes long enough for Jon to hit him in his stomach with a tightly balled fist. With both of his assailants writhing on the ground, Jon quickly turned tail and ran, his boots clunking on the cobbles.

Now Jon was no coward. He feared almost nothing. But he did dislike many things. He disliked pain, he disliked having to hand over his money, and he disliked especially the thought of being stabbed to death. He also had no qualms with fighting dirty. Things that hurt really bad, like nad kicking, gut punches, dislocated jaws, broken ribs, and cracked kneecaps tended to heal pretty easily so he felt no remorse to the people he hit.

For this reason, he was trying to get as much distance himself and the thugs before they came to. After the first few minutes, he slowed down to a fairly brisk jog and started to enjoy the run. He found his mind wandering with all the adrenaline from the encounter clouding his focus. He wondered how his sister was doing. She was teaching at one of those nice finishing schools in Quirm. Ida was the success story of the family. While her three brothers were content to use their impressive intellects to get out of as much work as possible, she attacked it violently. So now she had a good job in another country and her three brothers were still in Ankh-Morpork, though they were also enjoying their mediocre success.

It was because of his preoccupation that he wasn't noticing where he was going, and ran into what appeared from his perspective to be a flowing blonde wig. The collision revealed there to be a body under the hair, one that was wearing sensible clothes and a functional breast plate. He realized in horror who he had almost run over and dipped his head down in apology.

"I'm sorry sergeant," he said, looking at Sergeant Angua Von Uberwald sprawled on the street.

"No harm done, sir," she said, then looked at Jonathon again. "Hey, you're one of the Kimmel brothers. You two are specials, right?" The sergeant was referring to him and his older brother Simon Kimmel who served as special constables.

"We are, sergeant."

"If I recall right, you and he did pretty well during a riot out in the Shades, right? Your brother has quite an arm on him."

Jonathon nodded. His family were all Offlians, and Simon had decided to join the clergy. When with the specials, he used a light flail instead of a truncheon. It was modeled after an Offlian ceremonial flail, but made of out of two pieces of finished black walnut wood connected with a thick rope. It did considerable damage in a brawl. "We were just trying to serve. Well, I apologize again and I'll see you later," much later would be preferable. His… business was a bit on the shady side, like most immigrant families. Not harmful to anyone mind you, but he was very lucky that guilds tended not to patrol the Shades too thoroughly.

"Wait, Jonathon, right? I'm actually looking for a place around your neighborhood. There's supposed to be an Ecksian food stand run by a guy Brian Vernon. You wouldn't know him by any chance, would you?"

Jonathon nodded slowly, his heart drooping a bit. Great. It wasn't that he didn't respect the Watch, or dislike Sergeant Angua, but Brian was one of his steady customers and it probably wouldn't do to have someone who could contact the various guilds whose prohibition laws he broke without a second thought. He considered running again, but that would have just caused awkward questioning. Finally, Jonathon said fine and led her to the rimward side of the Shades, where the small immigrant community he lived in was situated. It was distinctively not the Shades, but still not exactly anywhere else in the city. The apartments there were close together and what wasn't used for housing was being used for shifty stores. The light that shone through the tall buildings was grey and hazy. It was cool, and had a sort of clamminess, though the people were all brimming with emotion. A group of young Agatean women were shouting out deals on some homemade china and winked at Jonathon in a rather irreverent way, two Hubland warriors were brawling in a florist's shop, and in between two of the neighborhood's seven authentic Klatchian coffee rooms, was Brian Vincent's Grub Hole. Brian himself was tall, broad, and fat, making him look a bit like a giant fleshy monolith. He was an Ecksian of about forty-three years and wore a coat that was the epitome style about thirty years ago on a world two universes over. His thick wire rimmed glasses were always slightly askew. By far though, his most distinguished feature was his tawny hair, which was the shade of a white sheet stained with tobacco and was everywhere on him. His sideburns bristled out like a mane, and his beard looked as gnarled as some kind of resilient dessert weed

"Oy, s'a good thing I saw you, Jonathon me ole kidney," he said in a heavy Ecksian accent. "I wouldn't mind if you could get me another pint or two of that cranberry apple scumble you've been doing-"

"It's good to see you as well, Brian," Jonathon said, cutting in quickly, "I'd like you to say hello to Sergeant Angua from the CITY WATCH."

Brian may have been known as a bit odd, but he was quick on the uptake and gave Angua a charming smile. "Hello, Miss Sergeant. Could I interest you in a pie floater? It's the house special."

Unfortunately, Angua was also quick. "Are you part of the Brewers and Distillers guild, Mr. Kimmel?" she asked Jon. Jon's face didn't change at all, and there was no sign he was surprised by the question. He actually wasn't, and had already come up with an excellent excuse.

"No maam. The scumble was a gift from my grandmother. She lives up around Lancre. Most of the old women around there have stills." It was perfect. And his grandmother did live in Lancre and distill spirits. The fact that the scumble wasn't hers was a mere formality.

"So if I was to search your house, I wouldn't find a still of your own, will I?"

Jonathon felt his throat dry out for a second. This was probably going to back fire, but it was his only chance. "Brian," he said while still looking at the female watchman, "see if you have some of my mam's scumble still." Brian, knowing what his friend was trying to do, solemnly took out a small flask and uncorked it. The smell that came out was so sour and tart that the flowers outside of the small curled in on themselves until they were nothing but hard little balls of plant matter. He poured a tiny amount of the cloudy and clear liquid into one of his nicest shot glasses, and proffered it to Angua.

The sergeant took the glass and looked back at the two of them with piercing eyes.

"I'm not one to be bribed, you know," she said.

The two nodded vigorously.

"I won't end this because you're giving me some of what is quite possibly illegal alcohol."

More nodding.

"The fact you tried to persuade me with the material you were being questioned about won't help you at all in front of the guild masters."

If the two nodded any harder, their heads would have fallen off.

Finally, Angua downed the shot. There was no expression on her face as it went down. She didn't even blush. The two men were rather impressed.

Then Angua finally looked up at the two. It wasn't hostile, but it was searching. Finally, she stood up and said, "my compliments to your grandmother. Ask her for an extra pint next time you write to her. Now could you give me one of your famous Ecksian pie floaters, please. Then I'll have to get back to the Yard."

Brian nervously poured some pea soup into a cardboard cup, put a pork pie on top, and drizzled it with tomato sauce before sealing it and giving it to the Watch sergeant.

She thanked them and walked out of the stand, to the relief of the two fellows in there.

"That," Brian said while thoughtfully cleaning his glasses, "was too close and no mistake, old spice."

Jonathon nodded. The events from the past two hours had tired him out, so he asked for three floaters from Brian for him and his roommates, and after thanking Brian again, dragged himself to his apartment.

It was funny, he thought, about how every time he had managed to have gotten a hold of his steady and comfortably boring life, something like this had to happen. Kimmels tended to keep away from excitement, tending instead to go for comfortable work and decent pay. Jonathon shrugged and went into his building. Tomorrow was another day.

If he had even the faintest idea what tomorrow held for him, he would have wished it wasn't.

**And we're finished for the day, boys and girls. Hope you enjoyed it, especially if you enjoyed it enough to click that little review button over their. Come on, you know you want to. Please?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Geez, second chapter already? I'm on fire baby!! Seriously, don't let my narcissism keep you from enjoying this chapter. **

**Oh, and here are shout outs to my reviewers.**

**Big Cat: I appreciate the honesty. Thank you, and I tried to tone down on the description just for you.**

**Mad Possum: Why thank you, I appreciate the compliment. As with Mr. Cat, I tried to tone down on the blocks of text, and I'm happy you two trudged through them.**

**Sage: It does my heart good to see you here in the DW section, comrade. I proofread this bloody thing three times, just for you. If you can find anything wrong with it, I will personally kick myself in the head.**

**Now off you lot go.**

"Pardon, how many did you say you claimed as part of your legions of followers?" the secretary said, looking at the three before him. There was what appeared to be a titan in a desert tunic trimmed with bear fur, a rather smartly dressed young lady with a book satchel, and an old man in a ratty suit.

Austania sighed. "Look, it's in the thousands, okay?"

The secretary nodded. He wasn't a god himself, he just worked for them. He'd been working for them since day one, and he'd never seen anything like this. "So you three would like to apply for the," he checked the papers in front of him, "three bedroom bungalow on the left edge of the city, right?" Because Cori Celesti was situated in the middle of the Disc, rim wards was any way outwards, and hub wards was any way inwards. Instead, they used directions as if you were facing forward in front of the main gate.

The three nodded. Of course, they knew that something like this hadn't been done. Normally, a god would just ascend to Dunmanifstein, the gods' city on top of Cori Celesti, once they had gotten enough followers to not have to worry about the other gods. Their studies had shown them that if they succeeded, they would be the first small gods to live there.

"Well, you were the first to actually fill out the paperwork, for which I thank you." The whole ascension and demand of a place on Cori Celesti always plopped a big thing of paperwork into the poor secretary's lap. "But I won't lie to you. You three don't have a chance. Unless you have at least a hundred thousand or two to your name, the other gods will just laugh at you."

"We realized that," Michael said. "But we have a plan," he tapped the side of his nose, calculated specifically to annoy people by hopelessly failing to look clever.

The secretary decided he honestly didn't care what these upstarts decided to do. The nose tap had worked. "Whatever. They'll be at the game room. They almost always are. Good luck."

The pantheon of small gods struck out into the city. Dunmanifstein was a nice enough. The whole place had a rather pretentious feel to it though. The baroque work was overdone a bit too much and there were statues everywhere. None of them were amazing, Leonard of Quirm would do better with a hangover and wearing a pair of dragon breeding gloves. It reminded them of a place a young lawyer would like to live in to show how far he had come so quickly.

They finally found the game house. The gods of Discworld tended to content themselves with playing games or doing things associated to their domains. Bilibous drank a lot, Fate brooded and thought of little ironies for people to experience, Blind Io sat around and looked authoritative. What this essentially meant was that the gods weren't particularly intelligent. They didn't have to be.

The Ankh-Morpork Agency gods, on the other hand, realized they had to be at the very least well educated to be counted among their ranks, even if they had no intention of telling anyone. As Michael had put it "It's like fighting a bear without a weapon. You don't have to be intelligent, but you do need to know where the soft parts are and how to expose them. I tend to punch them in the kidneys and bite their nose. Maybe give them a head butt or three." Which isn't to say Michael is stupid, he just tends to think in long term plans that encompass all of two minutes.

So the small gods had a pretty good idea what they were going to do. They opened the doors, went down the hallway, and stood, waiting. After about two hours, they heard a voice say, "Well, what do you want to play now?"

They opened the doors and swept in. "Can I make a suggestion?" Michael said with a cocky grin. Timing was important. If they had come in and just waited for two hours for them to finish, the effect would have been diminished.

The gods in the room were all circled around a large model of the Disc. There wasn't anything on the board at the time, since they had just finished the game. Looking at the little white chips which were actually souls that claimed fealty to them, it looked like Io and Fate were vying for supremacy. A young woman with completely green eyes was in second, with Om and Offler grappling for third place.

Blind Io, chief of the gods, didn't move, but a few of his eyes floating around him swiveled around to look at the newcomers. "Here now, who's this?"

"Well, seeing as to how we didn't know they were in the city, we can safely assume they're gods," came the same voice who had suggested another game. It was Fate, and he gazed dispassionately at the newcomers through eyes that reflected the depths of space in them.

"We are gods, yes," said Austania. The plan was quite simple, though it required that all three of them played their parts perfectly. Like Michael had said, they were going to expose the gods' weak point and go for it "We've come here with a challenge to you."

A god's weak point is its pride. Their whole existence depended on people believing in them, so they had to except a challenge from another god. Either that or act contemptuous.

"A challenge?" sneered Fate. He was opting for the latter. "From three small gods who can't even claim one hundred thousand believers? Give us one good reason to take your challenge."

"We can give you three," Austania said. "One, though we are small gods, we have a very solid base. We will grow in the next few years, unencumbered by corrupt clergy, rivalry with other churches, and internal disagreements with dogma. We will get bigger, and quickly. We're giving you the best chance to wipe us out, if you can." The last statement hit its mark. Fate's eyes narrowed a bit.

"You seem to be rather confident, for small gods," he said with a trace of menace.

"Beware the confident foe who grins with ten behind him but one hundred in front," said Old George, who was rummaging through the snack cart, found a bowl of rather expensive looking chocolate truffles, and popped one into his mouth. "Er, anyone else want one?"

"Like George cited," Michael said, ignoring George, "what reason do we have to be confident? We came asking for a bloody bungalow, and we're willing to give up everything we've worked for just for that. And maybe a Pseudopolis chapter. Perhaps it isn't us who should be afraid, yeah?" The plan was working brilliantly. They had the attention of all the gods in the room at this point.

"The third reason," Austania pressed on, "is that unlike you, we got religion."

"You, got religion," Fate said, listening to how it sounded.

"What are you lot talking about?" Blind Io exclaimed. "Got religion?! You're gods! You bloody _are _religion!"

"One can't see the back of one's own head by looking forward," George stated with his mouth now filled with chocolate truffles. He took a look for something to wash them down with, and settled on a cup of punch.

"What's the deal with the old one?" Om asked.

"He prefers to speak in quotes," Austania said. "What he meant was that we took the perspective of a human. Human's aren't omnipotent, but they are clever, and I think that's our equalizer. So, what do you say? Do you accept or don't you?" Once again, note how she demanded the answer from them, instead of asking for one. There was only one way for this argument to go now.

"We'll show you puny upstarts what for," Io said, his craggy features growing deeper. The young woman with the green eyes smiled. It seemed she knew what they were trying to do. The Agency pantheon unconsciously decided that she was one to watch out for.

Offler grinned. He had been getting bored playing with the same people for so long. At this point, he practically knew every move that would be made by each player before it was made. Even the Lady's seemingly chaotic moves were merely complex occurrences of a few very simple rules and variables. It would be fun to have some new blood in Dunmanifstein. "Tho, what do you thuggest?" he said, his teeth getting in the way of the more difficult consonants.

George already had a box out with the words "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" emblazoned on the top.

The other gods crowded around as he read the rules in his deep phlegm filled voice. "The challenging gods choose a group of brothers equal in size to their group to be each sent on a different mission that ultimately leads them together, while all challenging gods attempt to thwart them. The game ends when the brothers are united and figure out what they must together do with what they have gained in their various travels."

"Sounds right up our alley" Michael grinned, "welp, time to pony up." Ten small white chips appeared in his hand and he proudly placed them in the center of the board.

Fate, Io, Offler, and the Lady each put in ten. The pool was now fifty thousand souls.

"Winner take all, I thuppose," Offler said.

"And if you do lose, you'll have to pay of the debt you'll gain by working as slaves to us for twelve hundred years," Fate said with a thin smile. The other gods nodded. It sounded traditional enough for this challenge.

"We'll worry about that when it happens," Austania said, again to the annoyance of the other gods. She looked at the board and finally placed her finger in one place. "We'll take them."

* * *

Jonathon opened the door to his apartment and called in, "I'm home, if anyone cares!" 

"You got da food?" came a noise like a well made tuba. The owner of said voice was Shellie, one of Jon's roommates. She was a troll, about eight feet high and broader across than most of the patrons of The Mended Drum. She was built like the idealization of mother nature, tall with broad shoulders and a rather curvy frame but also supplemented with the craggy muscles of an ox carved from rock. She wore the standard bra and loincloth of all female tolls, but supplemented this with a cotton button shirt, unbuttoned to keep cool, and a straw hat with one butterfly wing on the side.

"One rat floater, one pumice and silt floater, and one pork pie floater. I think that ought to cover it." Brian, like most immigrant cooks, catered to all species. It helps if you cover all your bases.

"You got the extra tomato sauce on the rat, right?" came the voice of Jonathon's other roommate, Lidda Hortsdaughter. She was part of the new trend in dwarf girls to show her gender, and wore a very sensible leather skirt and had put bronze filigree of cornflowers onto her iron helmet. No make up though, because she thought it was too excessive. "Brian never puts enough."

"Don't worry, I remembered," Jonathon said. He put the food on a table and threw himself onto a venerable sofa. "Please say you put the kettle on before I came in."

"We were just enjoying a cuppa 'fore you came in," said Shellie and gave Jonathon a nice cup full of milky sweet tea. The cup wasn't fine china, but it was well sculpted, quite graceful, and the glazes were tasteful and subtle. "Complements of Chalky. He gave us a new tea set in payment for dose prints you gave him"

"So what took you so long to get the food, anyway?" Lidda asked as she opened one of the cardboard cups.

Jonathon regaled them with the whole story, starting with bringing the unlicensed thieves to their knees all the way up to the sergeant at Brian's.

"Well, thank the gods she actually didn't search the place," Lidda said while looking around.

They lived in a decent apartment complex, it was a tiny bit musty and the walls were rather thin, but Lidda's forge kept the cold out. All around them were half done projects and all sorts of contraptions. Shellie's kiln was beside the forge, and Jonathon's press was beside that. There was a work bench with an assortment of tools any artificer would have been jealous of. Everything from leather shapers to wood carving tools were there. And the hammers! There were carpentry claw hammers for furniture making, Lidda's hammers for smithing, and even a few tiny hammers that Shellie used for making her miniscule stone charms.

In the middle of the whole bloody ensemble was the still. It was a huge mass of glass flasks, iron tanks, and copper tubing, where the three made a concoction of cranberries and apples that had been passed down from one Kimmel to another for six generations now. It was called Holy Hell, as that was what the first Kimmel said after drinking it, right before falling backwards through the window he was beside. It was a good thing it was on the first floor, or it would have ended there. As it was, it was this sour headache brew that brought the most money to the three unlicensed craftspeople.

Jonathon nodded gratefully. "If she had, just about every guild would have wanted a piece of us. Literally."

"At any rate, Shellie and I have something we'd like to talk to you about," Lidda said.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Well," Shellie said awkwardly, "you know how Hogswatch is coming up in two weeks, yeah?"

Jonathon nodded. Of course he bloody knew! He had been working nonstop so that he could save up money to go down to Quirm and see his mum and father. "I do. Why?"

"Well, we've been saving up see," Lidda said looking down.

"We ain't been back to Copperhead since we came to da city three years ago," Shellie said awkwardly. She was fiddling with the pieces of iron rod she used as chop sticks when eating Brian's floaters. The only cutlery that could survive a troll pumice and silt floater would have to be pure diamond. These worked almost as well and poor immigrants could easily afford them.

"Why are you so uncomfortable about asking me to go back home for Hogswatch?" Jonathon asked quizzically, "I'm not your keepers, it's fine with me."

"Well, dat's not what da real problem is," said Shellie as she fiddled with her hat.

"It's our parents."

Jonathon just looked at the two of them. This wasn't even beginning to make sense. He told them this.

"We've wrote to them and they want to meet you now," Lidda finally said.

"But we know you'd want to see your folks too, though," Shellie said hurriedly, "and we'd understand if you'd rather go dere."

Jonathon thought about this. He did want to see his parents. The Kimmel Clan had a tradition of meeting twice a year, on Hogswatch and Mam's Birthday. His entire extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and his own brothers and sister, all of them came together. Kimmels may not always be in touch with each other, but when it was required, they did it properly. "I really don't know guys. This is a big thing in my family, you know?"

"Fair enough," said Lidda, but Shellie had an idea.

"Why not bring all our families here?" she asked excitedly.

"Like here?" Jonathon asked skeptically. "Our apartment isn't all that huge. Actually, its kind of cramped."

"Not here!" she said, "and you people call me fick! No, bring dem to some posh ballroom or something uptown. All three of our families, yeah?"

They thought about this. It sounded ridiculous until you really considered it. Then it sounded even more ridiculous. Nonetheless, it did appeal to everyone's plan. They could all see their family, and their families could see their roomies.

"If we pooled our money, finished all our projects on time, and could somehow sell our extra fifteen gallons of scumble, we could probably pull this off," Lidda said, her dwarfen brain doing figures as good as any of the Patrician's clerks. "Ballroom, catering, everything."

"Yeah, but where the heck are we supposed to find someone who'd buy that much bootleg booze?"

Then a knock came on the door. Jonathon opened it and his eyes popped out. There, on his doorstep, were Moist von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearheart, the Post Master of Ankh Morpork and owner of the Golem Trust Fund, respectively. Moist was wearing an unassuming suit, and Miss Dearheart was wearing her token severe grey dress.

"Is this the house of Jonathon Kimmel?"

"It might be. I can assume that you're not here to cart my partners and I over to the various guilds of our fine city to have them tar, feather, slap, poke, prod, impale, and probe us in all orifices, right?"

"We might if you don't happen to have a large amount of liquor for sale," Ms Dearheart said. "Slick here's having a Hogswatch party at the office, and the guild rates are murder right now. They say it's supply and demand because of the holidays, I say it's screwing over the customer."

"An old Ankh-Morpork tradition," Jonathon said proudly. There was, after all, a reason the city's anthem was "We Will Rule You Wholesale".

"Hopefully you won't be to zealous in that particular tradition, because the tarring, feathering, slapping, poking, prodding, impaling, and probing are still an open option" Adora said with all the humor of a rock.

Jonathon changed his tact from Lovable Kidder to Subservient Merchant. "Please come in. As it is, we have a good deal of product we would be more than happy to give you for a very reasonable price."

"Oh gods no," Lidda said, "I'll do the negotiating. Come here, you two." She took the two to her room and closed the door. They talked for about thirty minutes. Both parties pretty well knew what the price was going to be, a good deal cheaper than guild booze, but fifteen gallons of scumble isn't chicken feed. If it was, those birds would die preserved, because that much alcohol would kill any bacteria living in them. That stuff could turn one of Ankh-Morpork's famous disease ridden pigeons into a pickled squab. As it was, the price was reached, the Post Master said they'd send the money in two days, which was the only time he got any thing out of his mouth with his paramour beside him. Then they left. Two people who could probably buy and sell everything they owned and themselves twenty or thirty times over had just walked out. Not that Jonathon and his friends cared. They had more important things to think about.

Once they left, Shellie and Jonathon looked at their dwarfen roommate.

"Well?" Shellie finally asked.

Lidda grinned. "Let's see if we can find a ballroom that can hold a small dwarfen mine, a troll family, and a Lancre clan!"

"It must be fate!" Shellie said happily.

Jonathon smiled at this. Fate? You two have been working like dogs since you came to the city for three years now, dodging guild enforcers, running from thugs or fighting when the need arose, and listening to disparaging comments about your size, skin, hair, and religion. And you still believe in fate?

"Nah," he said with the smile still on his face. "Fate's complete bunk."

* * *

"Cheeky little bugger," Fate muttered when he heard this said. "That tears it. He's mine." 

Austania grinned. "I like him already. So it looks like it's you and me."

Fate looked at the goddess loathingly. This little upstart in her skirt and cotton blouse with the blue vest was getting on his last nerve. Her eyes, like the eyes of all gods, showed her true nature. They were two perfect birds eye pictures of the Disc. They were staring back at him impassively. She had no idea how angry Jonathon's comment had made him. It was going to be difficult to fight an enemy who wasn't afraid of you, let alone one who didn't believe in you.

Offler's naturally wide grin grew even wider. He might have been challenging them, but only because he wanted in on this game. He knew it was going to be the most fun he'd had in a while. These upstarts were something special. "It appearth to be my turn then. Let'th have a look then…"

**And another chapter comes to a close. This is coming along surprisingly well.. And remember that every time you don't review, a kitten implodes on itself. Can you honestly live with that guilt?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Kids, just say no to World of Warcraft. That's all I really have to say. Oh, and reviews, of course!**

**Shadowdragon06: Thank ye kindly. I too, wish to see how this story pans out.**

**Bigcat: You flatter me, my friend. No, I'm not professional... yet. Here you'll see a little something that Fate's done to Jon, if you look hard enough.**

**Now let's get on with it, yes?**

"Pass me the marble paste, will you?" Lidda asked Shellie.

Shellie picked up a small can of grey sludge and passed it up to Lidda. The dwarf was twelve feet in the air, inside the giant maw of Offler's statue at his temple on God's Street. One of the trio's steady contracts was with Offler's temple, where they repaired the statues and walls.

"Do you have those new teeth, Shellie?" Lidda asked after she got the paste.

"Right here," said Shellie, passing a small bag up to the dwarf in the crocodile mouth.

Opening it up, she saw five hexagons of marble with a tooth growing out of each. Shellie's surprising proficiency in fine detail work along with a troll's innate understanding of rock allowed her to do some amazing sculpture. With the precision of a surgeon, Lidda gouged out a perfectly hexagon around each of the cracked and broken teeth surrounding the statues stony palate. Taking out the offensive teeth, she smeared the marble paste in each of the six-sided holes and placed each new tooth in. She then spread more of the grey gunk over the nearly invisible crack where she had replaced the teeth. The paste instantly hardened, and with some careful sanding, the teeth looked as if they were sculpted from the original stone.

"Alright Shellie, I'm coming out." With that, Lidda hopped out of Offler's maw and into Shellie's waiting hands.

Jonathon was managing a team of golems he had rented from the Golem Trust fund to clean the front wall.

"Axe three, can you get that bit to the left of you?"

"Of Course, Mr. Kimmel," came the voice of the golem as he moved to the left.

Jonathon smiled. Golems were amazing. Axe three was standing on the shoulders of another golem who moved to the left without an order so that Axe three could fulfill his order.

"How's it coming along?" Shellie asked.

"I tell you, these golems are a wonder. They practically do all the work themselves. I'm barely needed. Can you guys just imagine if we had one at the workshop?" He didn't notice the knowing glance that passed between the girls. "All right, you guys. We're done for the day." With that, all the golems departed. That is, all save for the one that Axe three was standing on.

"Um, I don't know your name," Jonathon said, looking curiously at the golem. He knew that the free golems were able to disobey orders as they saw morally fit, but he couldn't think of why the golem wouldn't want to go. "Don't you want to go to your next assignment?"

"I Am At My Next Assignment, Mr. Kimmel," said the golem, "And My Name Is Izshrkenthanna, Mr. Kimmel."

"Wait, did the temple employ you?"

"No," said Lidda smiling, "we did."

"What?!" Jon exclaimed disbelievingly. "How much did the thing cost us? I know that golems are pricy. We're lucky that we can put the golems we use for cleaning this place under our expenses!"

"Relax," Shellie said soothingly, "Da golem's part of our deal with Miss Dearhart. Lidda asked her for one, and she's providing us with Ishken, Ishkar, da golem."

"It's completely paid for, and the extra hands will help us with our projects," Lidda said. "We even got a new contract. It's quick and the money's good. We should be able to get it done and organize the party still."

Jonathon finally nodded. "As long as we're not paying. Welcome aboard, Ish, Isher, Iz, look, do you have a nickname or something?"

"I Seem To Remember Miss Dearhart Calling Me Anna, Mr. Kimmel."

Now that Jonathon actually looked at the golem, it was obvious that it was a bit more feminine than most. It still was fairly asexual, but it was more slender and the lines of its form seemed to flow more than the average golem. Anna seemed to be fitting.

"Anna it is then. Welcome aboard. You can start by carrying me back to my apartment."

"Just Climb Onto My Shoulder Then, Mr. Kimmel."

"Geez, can you get much lazier, bro?" came a voice behind Jon.

He looked behind him to behold a tall fellow in the vestments of an Offlian priest, complete with braided beard and ceremonial flail stuck in his broad cloth belt. The flail was made of resilient black walnut wood though. It had a few nicks on the slightly longish handle, possibly from parrying knives and swords. As to the man himself, he had slightly curly hair and brownish skin and his stomach hung over his belt a bit. His physique could have been described as "rather well fed", but he was naturally large, so he didn't look fat. You could even go so far as to say he was "cuddly".

"Good to see you too, Simon," Jonathon said, beholding his big brother. "And you're one to talk about laziness. Have they caught you sleeping while you were supposed to be meditating?"

"I was intoning a prayer in the mysterious tongue of Offler," Simon said haughtily.

"You were snoring, bro."

"The tongue of Offler requires you to roughly draw air through your nose and between your tongue and palate. At any rate, brother Loan said he was impressed with your dental work, as always, and it's worth paying for those overgrown flowerpots, seeing as to how you keep the place so clean. The money will come in three days."

"Good seeing you too, bro. Say, are you going to be at the Drum tomorrow night? Adam's going to be over there."

"I'll be there," Simon said grinning. The three Kimmel brothers didn't drink much, but most of the patrons of the Mended Drum knew that beneath their less than perfect physiques were three boys who knew how to scrap if not well, than dirtier then a white cloth in the Shades. "Now shove off. You're sullying this hallowed ground with your presence."

The brothers smiled at each other and embraced in a fierce bear hug. "See you tomorrow night then," Jon said amiably.

"Bugger off, bro," Simon said equally as good naturedly.

As his brother and friends walked off, Simon trudged back to his cell. Offlian priests lived pretty simply, though Simon's small but comfortable cell would have made an Omnian sniff scornfully. It had a soft bed in one corner, a simple but well build desk, and an armoire where he kept his robes and clothes for when he was out on the streets. Beside the bed was a small altar to Offler, complete with a stove and skillet. Simon opened one of his desk's drawers and brought out a small bundle of sausages.

He put the sausages in the altar's skillet and started to fry them up. The heady smells of the spirit of the sausages ascending to Offler filled his cell. As this sacrifice to Offler was being prepared, Simon prayed.

* * *

The game had been stopped for lunch. Offler was tapping his new teeth while watching as sausages started to materialize on his plate. Countless types of sausages were fazing into existence. There were small grey things from Ankh-Morpork, the big plump Uberwaldian tubes of meat, even a haggis from Lancre. "Thothe kidth at Ankh Morpork did a good job."

"So you actually do get the sausages that are sacrificed to you?"Michael said interestedly. He was going to be the crocodile god's opponent, so he decided to watch him. Besides, watching Offler eat was an amazing entertainment.

"Nope," the crocodile headed god said as he viciously snapped up another bundle of sausages he'd tossed into the air. "Thith ith the thpirit of the thauthageth."

"Oh. Does the spirit taste like the sausages that it came from?"

"I honethtly wouldn't know." Offler was now savagely attacking the haggis. "I've never eaten a real thauthage."

Over to the other side, Io was sipping punch with Fate. "So, Offler took the big one, eh?"

"It's no real surprise," Fate said as he took a small drink from his cup. "He is his disciple, after all. Besides, I have faith in Offler. He's an old god. He's crafty."

"Speaking of which," Io said as a few of his eyes squinted at Fate. "Was that really necessary, what you did? I mean, you could kill the skinny one."

Fate's eyes looked at Io coldly. "I couldn't help it. It was his Fate. We'll see if he doesn't believe in me after this."

Io just looked down into his punch and took another drink from it. Fate was a very powerful god, but Io had nothing to fear of him. In all honesty, Io realized a while back that there really wasn't any reason to unduly fear other gods once you've made it to Dunmanifstein. Once you've got here, you're pretty much set for eternity. Yet Fate, who claimed almost as many followers as he did, always played as if he was about to lose. Most gods were willing to gamble in a rather irresponsible way, but Fate always made every move so deliberately, as if each was a matter of life and death.

"You never enjoy yourself, do you Fate?"

"We all have our flaws, Io."

"Mmmm."

* * *

Simon now seated himself in front of his desk, and brought out a leather bound book. The others would soon arrive.

"Simon, you in?" came a voice from outside his door.

"Yeah, is that you Mike?" he called out.

"Me and Chauncey both. You coming to the library?"

"Just give me a second." Simon pulled out two other books, a cheap notebook, and a few pencils.

He opened the door and beheld two other fellows in vestments similar to his. They were both a bit larger than the average priest, and their ceremonial weapons looked functional. The one called Michael was an Ankh-Morpork mutt like Simon, with muddy brown hair, green eyes, and a freckled face. While Simon was well fed, Michael was rather chubby. Despite this, he moved with the grace of a dancer, or an assassin. Tucked into his belt was a ceremonial sickle, though it was steel when most others were copper or bronze. The normally blunt edge had been honed razor sharp. The boy who Michael called Chauncey was tall, only slightly shorter than the titanic Simon. He was also broad, and though his vestments didn't show it, he was very well muscled. The deep black of his straight hair and dark complexion showed him to be from western Klatch. He was leaning on a not-so-ceremonial scythe, a typically pagan weaponn As if to compensate for this, it had pictures of crocodiles etched onto the blade and Chauncey had also plated the blade with copper.

These three fellows were the grounds keepers for the temple. Each was a junior priest, and they needed to help around the temple until they were promoted. So, the three of them trudged out of the temple's cells to its main wall. The architect had been nice enough to put the library right beside the main gate, so the three had come up with the idea of two of their group standing guard at the gate while the third could stay in the warm library and work on their holy mission thesis.

You see, in order to become a senior priest, a junior priest must first draw up a project of adequate holiness to be presented to the really senior monks. If they accepted the thesis, the priest worked on their project, and at its completion they were deemed senior priests.

Chauncey and Michael took first watch, so Simon went into the library. The warm dry room was like the rest of the temple and seemed to exude oldness. The walls were sandstone and were lit by old fashioned oil braziers. This was a library where people did just as much sleeping in as they did read. Fighting back his own drowsiness, he fell into one of the squashy old chairs and brought out his big thick books.

He was researching the Fang of Offler, one of the church's most holy relics. It had been the crocodile god's first tooth, which had fallen onto the Disc about two and a half thousand years ago. It was said that the fang had hidden inside its cavity ridden core the secret of prophecy. And not the metaphor heavy double talk of the priests around Ephebe or some such, but the secret of the ability to clearly know the future. Like to know what would be the next big thing to invest in, or where Chrysoprase's guys would be tomorrow so you'd know where to slip off to for a few years.

The senior priests had dismissed the Fang as a myth as they often do, but this didn't deter Simon. It wasn't that he thought it was real, he knew for a fact that it was a myth. It was for this reason he knew that he could find it. Anytime that a senior authority dismissed something as a myth or superstition, it became real. The fact it's nonexistent is unimportant.

So Simon was sitting at the desk, calculating the currents of the Circle Sea, sifting through weather reports from two thousand years ago, and looking through the inventories of fishing ships from almost as far back. It was slow and boring work, and it was for this reason he rather enjoyed it. Kimmels enjoy work that you can eat and doodle in the margins and not actually lose too much time on the project.

He was using his Offlian bible to chart a starting point. It stated that Offler had spat the fang widdershins of the ancient mountain of Akab Nijiag and into the Circle Sea. After two weeks of looking through the library, he had finally found that the ancient mountain was about eighteen miles from the town of Badass. So he had finally found a general direction for the calculations to start with. Simon wasn't the best mathematician, but his brother Adam had access to someone who lived to do sums. But not really lived, as it was in fact just a mess of ants, hamsters, umbrellas, and some other parts that language fails to describe.

It was of course, HEX, the brainchild of the fellows of the High Energy Magic Building. All Simon had to do was to find as many variables as possible, Adam would give it to the super thaumophiles at the HEMB, and they would create an equation to give to HEX.

This doesn't mean his job was easy, however, merely possible. Simon had been puzzling over this for two weeks just to find a starting point. Now he had to sift through about ten million pages of weather reports to give Adam's friends the necessary variables.

He took a look at a ratty old piece of papyrus talking about how it rained blue cats twelve hundred years ago and wondered if it was a legitimate variable. He shrugged and put it on the paper anyway. The weather reports weren't all that hard, he just had to transcribe mountains upon mountains of text.

About two hours later, Chauncey came in and told Simon it was his turn to make sure the gate didn't get stolen. He and Mike stayed out, and it was fairly uneventful. The night was cold, and only young heroes tried to steal Offler's stuff nowadays, so the priests would often take a weekly visit to the Ankh Morpork Young Men's Pagan Association and collect any gold or jewels that went missing.

No such thing happened on that night, and as the clocks in the city sporadically struck six in the morning, the three friends adjourned to the priest common room for a cup of tea before they went to their cells to sleep.

No one had noticed that Simon's notes were fattened by five pages while he was guarding the gate.

* * *

"You really must forgive us, but it's never happened before," Fate said with the slightest amount of delight in his voice. "But we have no idea where to put you three. We've never had guests before." He said the word "guests" as if it tasted bad.

"I've got a few utheleth roomth at the houthe," came Offler.

"Thanks, sir," Michael said, grinning as Fate's face contorted into various forms of disgust.

"Don't thank me," Offler said with a literal crocodile smile on his face. "You'll each owe me if you win. And if you lothe, you'll be rubbing my feet for the first thix hundred yearth of your punithment. My rough, thcaly feet."

Fate nodded. He wondered what Offler had slipped into the boy's notes. Offler was keen on simple, straightforward intervention, he was quite old school in this way. Whatever it was, it would definitely have an impact on everyone's game. He adjourned to his rather squat and squarish mansion. He had some preparations to make for tomorrow.

**Well, hope you all think it was worth the wait. If you're going to blame anyone, blame those dudes at Blizzard for making such an addicting game. Now excuse me, my level 12 tauren warrior beckons. **


	4. Chapter 4

**So, reviews first as usual.**

**Mad Possum: You sick sick little Limey. I'd kill you, but your compliments did too much fo my ego. You get to live another day.**

**Big Cat: Thank you so much. I apologize for the wait. Hope it was worth it.**

**So after such a wait, I'll let you guys go now so you can read this and get to the proper work of killing me out of anger.**

Unseen University, the most prestigious school of higher learning on the Disc is an impressively large compound. What made it so impressive was the fact it was a few times larger than it actually was, physically speaking. This surveyor's nightmare was created from the ridiculous amount of magic in and around it. There are entire villages of pasty faced post-grads working on their theses or ornery young instructors actively trying to keep away from students.

It is in one of these small enclaves of cartographic exile a young post grad of the tall and chubby variety lived. His name was Peter Kimmel. Like many young wizards who chose to stay at the school after graduation, and most bivalve mollusks, Peter had found his niche in the realm of highly impractical magic and had made himself comfortable. He specialized in Local Biomantic Engineering of the higher classes of small mammals. His thesis had been making a vegetarian ferret named Charlie, who was a lot like most ferrets save for his mellowness and penchant for plum wine brewed in Peter's cuspidor that the wizard himself didn't use. Peter himself had a small pipe, but was not the nicotine addict most wizards turned out to be. When not enjoying the pretty much never ending smorgasbord of the University's cafeteria or having to put up with Charles' constant monologue about free love and world peace, he was in the library, giving the Librarian a hard time.

Unseen University had the privilege of having a librarian who was capable of not only carrying books in three limbs at a time, but could also cleanly knock out any unruly student that decided to read under the influence of cheap wine with a casual flick of a four-and-a-half foot arm. He was, in fact, a three hundred pound orangutan, a state that he took every pain to stay in. The fellow just didn't know what to do with Peter, though. He was a nice enough kid. He was quietly intelligent, impervious to angst, and was such a slacker no one worried about him trying to do anything so drastic as actually have ambitions, or even goals. The problem was he read too much.

The Librarian got rather annoyed by his constant reading. He could practically hear the words on whatever book the young wizard was reading wear down into nothingness. He often tried to talk to Peter about this, but Peter was smart enough to keep a bunch of bananas with him when he went into the library. This was almost certainly enough to keep the Librarian from taking any action against him for a good amount of time.

But on this particular night in the story, he was sneaking past the University's porters. All the University students knew about the brick wall in the back, but Peter found it was just as easy to walk out of the front door, provided he didn't want to be seen. Peter was exceptionally good at not being seen, as was anyone who lived within the Shades for any period of time. Even the slightly tamer immigrant villages weren't without occasional problems, and unobtrusiveness was a virtue. The porters were laughably easy after his real life schooling.

After finally leaving the University premises, he pulled a bodhran out from his expansive robe. Not expensive. Just big. Most wizards were not good musicians, as magic and music mixed about as well as, well two things that don't mix well. No need to get metaphorical about it. As the reader has no doubt picked up though, Peter was not anything like most wizards.

Though it seems odd, the Kimmels are big fans of authority in general, unless you can evade it. It's for this reason that Jon and Simon were special constables, because they want to make sure that the wossnames that deserve to be caught were.

As it is, they believe that guilds can for the most part shove it where the sun doesn't shine, and Peter was part of an unlicensed band called the Cosmic Whales. On this night, the band was going to play at the Mended Drum, the owner of which didn't mind unlicensed bands because he didn't have to figure guild rates into their payments.

Peter was starting to enjoy his walk. Ankh-Morpork nights were rather interesting in the winter. There were huge mounds of off color slush where young kids made snow fortresses and devised military strategies that no general would have thought of. There is nothing more ingenious and/or cruel then a nine year old boy. Peter had this confirmed when he was pelted from all sides by snowballs and rather dirty jeers. A few of the little blighters even mocked his hat. What has the world come to when a wizard is mocked? Strewth, did that little blackguard put pebbles in his snowballs?! Fighting back the urge to turn the little thingummies into newts, Peter was forced to retreat to an alley. There his karma wrote him another check it would promise to pay back later on in the form of a young thief. Peter was lucky enough to have been jumped by a guild thief though.

"Hello, sir, how are we today?" the thief, a rather nice looking girl of about nineteen said. "If you'd be so kind, this is my first time on the job, so if we could do this without too many problems we could be on our way. If you're interested, we have a number of immunity plans for this month which you might find to be especially useful."

"First off," Peter said, deciding to put this young cut-purse in her place. Who did she think she was anyway, stealing from a wizard? "I happen to be a full fledged wizard, not a student. Now I wouldn't do anything so drastic as turn you into a frog-" then he spun around and promptly kicked the older man who had been sneaking up behind him with a sap square in the knee. "But if you wouldn't mind a bit of advice, don't look over my shoulder while you're talking. It looks a bit suspicious. No hard feelings, Danny."

The older thief, a short and dumpy sort, smiled weakly as he staggered back up. "It's fine, Peter. Shame you or your brothers didn't come to the guild. You would have made grand thieves. Gods preserve us though, Lizzie. I told you to make sure to either maintain eye contact or at least avert your gaze bashfully. And what were you thinking trying to get money from a wizard?"

"Sorry Mr. James," Lizzie said while looking at the ground sheepishly.

"Besides, these guys almost never have so much as a tuppence on em, anyway!"

"When you can turn a man inside out with just a flick of the hand, you tend to get what you want, Danny."

Danny nodded and smiled. "True enough, true enough. Well, I suppose this is it for us tonight. Lizzie, you're getting extra… well, confound it, what's punishment like nowadays? I haven't had an intern for a long while."

"You could dock my pay, sir."

"I don't pay you, Lizzie."

"Exactly, sir."

"I reckon I could have you wash my windows or some such. Maybe help the wife around the house. Anyway, good seeing you Peter. Take care, right?"

"Whatever, Danny," Peter said, smiling. "Take care, Lizzie."

Lizzie looked down bashfully and mumbled something Peter couldn't hear. She was an attractive young girl, very youthful. Peter fought back the remnants of his hormones telling him maybe he should have just been a plumber and settled down. As a twenty six year old wizard, his body was still trying to throttle his brain for what it was doing to it.

"Lizzie, stop mooning over the wizard and get over this wall!"

Blushing profusely, Lizzie nimbly hopped and grabbed the wall's edge before rolling off to the other side.

Peter shrugged and walked into the door, but first remembered to take off his pointy had and slipped off his robe. Under his wizarding clothes, Peter was wearing common slacks and a buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He then stuffed all of the stuff in a satchel he'd been carrying, but it was a painful decision. It almost physically hurt a wizard to part with his clothes, which meant he'd had to part with the authority they gave him as well. But whatever, the band wouldn't be playing for a while and he had someone he wanted to see.

Stepping into the Mended Drum, you could almost see the testosterone wafting through the rafters. The night's brawl hadn't started yet, but everyone was being divided into teams and fellows were getting acquainted with each other. The older guys were also giving tips to the younger men on the finer points of a good bar brawl.

"I recommend a well balanced knife, son," a man with blue whorls across his expansive belly said to a younger man who had a scar on his forehead. " No more then nine inches should be fine. It's amazing the havoc you can reek when you throw one at the band. Never mind aiming though, just watch the buggers dance."

Elsewhere a man with a face like a wild boar, tusks included was talking to a friend. "It's the fingers you gotta watch out for, more than anything. Look here," the man brandished a thumb noticeably darker then his other digit s. "Me and some Klatchian chap both lost a thumb and the Igor got em mixed up. It really isn't a big deal, but I recommend tying colored strings to them, makes it easier on the guy. Gods know he tries."

"So Lidda was trying to get her number eight ball peen hammer but hadn't noticed that Shellie's pottery wheel was still spinning. It probably wouldn't have been such a big thing if she hadn't tripped over the broom handle, but as it was, we had to spend half an hour trying to get her beard out of the thing!" Finally hearing what he had been listening for, Peter homed in on the slightly nasally voice and beheld his two brothers, each with a pint in hand.

"Hey you two," he called to them.

"Well, if it isn't our estranged occult brother," Simon said grinning. "Finally come to repent for your sins against Offler?"

"Stuff it, Simon," Peter said grinning. "Besides, I still make it to evening mass. When I'm not sleeping or eating dinner or I haven't forgotten at any rate."

"Well, whatever bro," Jon said and called for another pint. "So how did your thesis presentation go?"

"Oh it went terrific," Peter smiled. "They were especially impressed when Charlie tried to smoke some of Modo's fungi compost mix and he turned bright blue and started to speak backwards."

"A vegetarian weasel, eh?" Simon said.

"Hey, I passed, and got free tuition, room, and board for my post grad work."

"What are you planning on doing next? A passive aggressive badger?" the priestly Kimmel said to the general mirth of all three brothers.

"Yeah yeah, and how goes your search for the fictitious fang of Offler?"

"Surprisingly well," Simon said, "it was weird, but last night, I got a whole lot more done than the usual amount, but I remember taking a nap and doodling in the margins like I always do. Oh, and here are the new factors." He rummaged through his pack and gave his brother the large folder he had spent all the previous night not exactly working on. Peter thumbed through the pages and contemplated the cartoons.

" What's the deal with the pointy haired baron?"

"He's just stupid and corrupt."

"Oh, so that's why the alchemists are so angry at him. Well, I'll just take these to the Thaumo geeks, like always."

"You don't do too much with HEX, do you?" Jon asked. Though he wasn't all that interested in wizardry, the tinker in him was always rather interested in HEX.

"Me? Nah, I'm too traditional. Someone's got to keep creating new and exciting ways to waste magic, might as well be me. Besides, it's just fun to give those guys some ridiculous idea and watch them scurry about. It's better than watching sea monkeys!"  
As the three brothers sat about talking, a rather large hand fell onto Peter's shoulder. Attached to this hand was a body that was shaped rather like a large cow, specifically those special cows that live like kings and get fed beer everyday and have a life which though short, has a better overall experience level than that of a good three fourths of anyone living in Ankh-Morpork.

Peter looked up. "Oh, hey Nik. Guys, this is Nikolas Von Krigzen, Black Ribboner and the Cosmic Whale's fiddle player."

The other two brothers stared at Nik. It is very difficult to look at a fat vampire. It is a complete and utter oxymoron. Your eyes start crossing and darting in different directions as your instincts tell you what you are seeing is impossible. Vampires, as your instincts desperately try to tell you, are sleek and handsome and androgynous to a certain degree. Nikolas was comfortably not any of these things at all.

He wasn't ugly, and carried his weight very well. He had a well trimmed little beard that came to a point, and a round face. He was built like a ball, but his tailor had managed to give his clothes a certain cut that made him look like his extra weight was that of added authority, instead of just regular extra weight. And there is no way he could be confused for anything but a large and slightly solemn man.

"It is an honor to meet zer brothers of our harmonica player" Nikolas said with a little bow. His voice was spot on for a vampire, despite his appearance. He managed to sound as if each letter was hand illuminated and made of stained glass and lead. There was a slight hint of pointed roofs in its timbre. "I hope you vill be enjoying zer show."

"I take it we're starting to set up then?" Peter said as he got up from his chair. The wood groaned in thanks.

Nik nodded. "I shall see you up on zer stage in five minutes. Lucas is setting up as vell."

Peter waved as Nikolas accentuated himself across the floor to the stage. If you can imagine a basketball or a really big sack of pudding accentuating itself across a floor, you can imagine what a sight this was. You probably also get some pretty high quality nightmares.

"Well, it was good talking to you guys. Take care."

"See you at Hogswatch,"

With that he got up and made his way to the top of the stage. Ducking behind the curtain, he beheld the rest of his band. Lucas, the banjo player smiled and waved at Peter. Lucas was a professional candle dribbler, a profession that demanded complete and slightly neurotic concentration. He and Peter became friends when the Kimmel brother went to Lucas's shop to fill an order for dribbly candles. It was amazing how quickly a young wizard post grad could go through those things. At any rate, Lucas's personality was perfect for mastering an instrument as demanding and temperamental as the banjo. "Are you ready to play, Peter?" the young candle dribbler asked.

"Oh, of course," Peter grinned. "Now we just have to wait for Nik to get up here."

"I am ready," came Nik's deep rich voice. He opened up a rather shabby leather case and took out the most beautiful violin Peter had seen in his life. It was black and seemed to emanate a dark charm, much like its player. The violin's catgut strings were dyed blood red. Indeed, there was something slightly sinister about it. It was something you expected to hear as an indicator of one's coming doom. It wasn't something you expected to hear played in a folk fusion band crewed by fat people.

"I know I say this every time I see that violin Nik," Lucas said in admiration, "but I have never seen a more beautiful instrument in my life. It gives me chills."

Nikolas nodded. "It is indeed a handsome instrument. I vas lucky to find it in zer basement."

Peter had a little laugh at this. Nik's family just came to Ankh-Morpork a year ago, and was a member of the new poor aristocracy flooding in from Uberwald. These are people who have almost no land, maybe two or four peasants under them, and crushing real estate debts. Yet somehow, they always have something or another that shows that though they are at the bottom of the rung financially, they are still nobility.

"Well, the curtain's about to rise, is everyone ready?"

"I reinforced Marian's back for the occasion," Lucas said grinning. Like most banjo players, he gave his instrument a girl's name. It's best not to ask why. "And I've got the steel guitar in the back if things get too bad."

"Unless you saw any flasks of holy water or flares in zer audience, I vill probably be fine."

Peter grinned at his motley band. "All right, let's give them Scrotey Jim's Jig. That's good brawling music."

The band nodded. The raggedy cloth was pulled away from the stage, and as the saying goes, hilarity ensued.

It started with the basic laughing and jeering at the band. As the beer started to work its magic, a few people threw mugs at them. These were easily deflected, Lucas even batted one back at one of the fellows who threw it at him. It hit him in the head, and a hearty laugh was enjoyed by all.

Then the man who was laughed at hauled off and punched a guy beside him, who then took his crossbow to the fellow who punched him. Unfortunately, he was drunk, so he merely succeeded at shooting another man's stein to pieces. The brawl was now starting to gain potential energy, waiting for the breaking point. The song was getting to the part where Scrotey Jim, a fine Sto Plains lad, is captured by a young Lancre Witch. I won't go into details for the sake of the children, but suffice it to say that only one particular witch from Lancre would consider what was detailed in the ditty, and she wrote it. Connect the dots, my beautiful readers.

It was at that moment that another crossbow bolt was shot, this time into the band, and found its way into one of the player's chests. The music stopped as the Cosmic Whale's violin player stared at the offending missile. Nik pulled it out nonchalantly, looked at it, and flung it into the man's leg.

"They have a bloody vampire? Sod that!!"

"Ah, shut it, you pansy; you couldn't take a toothless fly!"

"What for then, mister! Put them up!"

The band shrugged and started playing again, and the brawl really started.

Furniture broke, swords were drawn, and the species of various fellows mothers were hypothesized by the accompaniment of the corpulent music makers.

Meanwhile, the other two Kimmel brothers were playing catch up.

"So we're thinking of hosting Hogswatch Night here in Ankh Morpork," Jonathon finished telling Simon.

"You're even getting a coach ticket for Mam?" Peter asked while instinctively ducking as a lighter scrapper was thrown over the bar.

It is a an oft quoted stereotype in Ankh-Morpork that if you happen to be of Lancre stock, have a rather large clan-like family, and have said family ruled over by an old matriarch of a grandmother, your granny is automatically a witch. This is not true. It's fairly common for most old grannies to be regular old ladies of the crocheting and part time distilling sort. Mam, the master of the Kimmel clan, was not one of these normal biddies. She was a witch of some power, and lived in the "foothills" between Lancre proper and the hilly beginnings of the Sto Plains. Sweet as molasses to her grandkids, a dour and obscenity spewing chainsmoking hag to anyone she didn't particularly like, especially her beloved only son and oldest child, Joseph Kimmel. Jon, Simon and Peter's dad had rushed off to work in Klatch very quickly thanks to her. She considers him one of her greatest successes.

"Yeah, but I think she'll find some way to keep the money," Jon said smiling. A large man rushed up to smush Jon into the bar's surface, only to be knocked on the side of the head by a beer mug wielded by his brother.

"Another half pint of porter for me, barkeep," Simon said as he drizzled the dregs onto the man's face.

"Righto, you're eminence."

Meanwhile, the band was keeping busy as well. Though the customers had enough sense not to do anything to Nik, they were willing to take it out on his fellow musicians, but the effect wasn't what they expected. One Hubland warrior found out the damage a reinforced banjo could do during one of Nikolas's frequent violin solos and though Peter couldn't do magic lest his cover was blown, he still managed to get some kicks in, and stamped a few fingers as well.

After the night was through, Peter said bye to his brothers and shimmied up the removable bricks in the University's wall. He counted out five AM dollars, and put them in his satchel. Then he easily made his way back to his little room in his little pocket of UU, and flopped down on his bed. Beside him, a weasel smelling of exotic spices and fermenting fruit looked at him dazedly.

"Hey there, buuuudy," came the slow mellow tone of Peter's post grad thesis.

"Hi Charlie. How was your evening?"

"Pretty goood. A couple of the crows and I tried the new plum wine I set down, and it was juuust right, man."

"Have you been using Thomas's Internal Temporalatron to age your wine again, Charlie?"

"Naaaw dude," the weasel said slowly waving his paw.

"Charlie."

"A little."

"Charlie."

"Okay, we got six more spittoons full, all right, man? Don't get oppressive."

"You messed with the Infinite Universe button to get the extra spittoons, didn't you? That's Thomas's thesis project, Charlie. You shouldn't use it like it's yours."

"You can't own stuff, man. Not any more than you can own the air around you."

"Lady Ramkin owns forty percent of the air in Ankh Morpork. Anyone building more than three stories up in the greater Ankh district has to get her say so."

"And you support those facists, man?"

"Yes. Now appologize to Thomas when he comes in tomorrow, okay?"

"Suuure, man."

With that, Peter yawned and blew out the candle beside his bed. "Okay Charlie. Good night."

"So that's my adversary, eh?" Io said, his eyes swiveling to look at Peter from all sides. "He doesn't seem like a proper wizard to me."

"Hast though looked upon the sword what shall be your downfall, dear Theopalus?" Old George said, his beard caked over with chocolate frosting as he finished his eighth piece of Quirmian Doubly Demonic Cake.

Io's eyes squinted at the old man. "I almost never know what you're saying, but I don't like how you say it."

Om, who opted to sit this one out, looked upon these young small gods. He had been a small god for a while, and realized the gravity of challenging the larger faiths. If they lost, they would make life a living… well hell for them, but if they won, they could do just as much damage. Looking into their eyes, Om tried to discern their nature. Austania's eyes held the disc. The realm of the physical world was her domain. Every insignificant rock, she knew the location of. Nothing escaped her all knowing glance, and Om had the distinct feeling that he should keep his head down and pray she didn't have a ruler. He looked into Michael's and saw two brown feral orbs, laced with a sort of shrewd intelligence. In another age, he would have made a great war god. Then to Old George, whose eyes looked grey. Only when you focused could you see what they really were. On the whites of his eyes were words, flipping along at a ridiculous place, as if he was reading every book in the world at once. If knowledge was power, Om decided he'd rather not think of what the old man was capable of.

And so, the game between Discworld's most powerful gods and this small plucky pantheon began in full.

**Another chapter, another pointless navel gazing moment. Review if you would, and feel free to insult me for my ridiculous American procrastination. I shall give a cookie for whoever can insult me the worst. For serious.**


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